the Peacock Clans and the Wheel Clan for this war. Why add further—”
Netophah raised his hand: a gracious hand, a fair hand, yet marked and bruised by war. “Father, if the Firstborn is right and these strangers are unallied to the warring Peacock Clans, they should be spared. If they’re a small clan, what can they do?”
“Much!” Gaal said. “Have you not seen how the Peacock Clans have rallied other unallied tribes? These outcasts may have been set to ensnare us.”
“If they’re night-tossed, they should not die,” Netophah said. “We will do what we do with all night-tossed towers who cross our path. We will ally ourselves to them and repair their damaged tower. But we will not teach this unallied people any tower science. No, not so much as how to keen.” He turned to his brother and winked. “What say you to that compromise, Firstborn?”
“I like it very much,” Psal said. “An alliance with them could not harm us.”
“A marriage alliance, perhaps.” Ephan approached the king. “Especially since the neutral clans have forbidden their women from marrying into our clans. Some of these Peacock women are undoubtedly unmarried and will be pleased to marry into our clan. And to meet so many men from one longhouse at once would be agreeable to them. They would consider it fortunate that many of their sisters could marry into the same longhouse. In addition, fourteen is a Peacock girl’s marriageable age. Younger than our tradition, but Nahas would be ready to overlook that. Do you not think so, Adopted Father?”
The king laughed. “Ephan, you were born to persuade.”
“Inter-marriage with our enemies?” Cyrt shook his head. “Nahas, your dead father would laugh to hear this.”
“I’ll make my decision after we’ve spoken with this lost clan.” Nahas gestured toward the longhouse entrance. “War whistles will signal my decision. I and our warriors will journey toward this tower. Have our women prepare a feast.”
“Father,” Psal began, but Nahas raised his hand.
For a moment, Nahas seemed to study him like an alchemist examining an unknown ore, searching out its value. When Psal was younger he had believed the searching out would one day end, but he knew better now: Nahas was permanently ill at ease with his damaged son.
The faint rhythmic drumming of Cassia’s tower continued, but Psal pushed its song from his mind. He could not think of Cassia now, he had to save the Peacock Clan innocents.
CHAPTER 8
MAHARAI
See now: Maharai, fifteen years old but short for her age, with tiny black braids around a thin, plain, dark brown face, scrawny legs, tiny breasts, and round buttocks. She was not beautiful like Tolika, Gidea’s daughter, the slender beauty whom Lan and Deyn loved, and about whom many great songs were sung. Neither was she voluptuous like her mother, the round-faced, large-hipped Ktwala. If Maharai had been a beauty, Psal would not have fallen in love with her. She was plain, but plainness isn’t unattractiveness. She had an attraction that stemmed from greatness of spirit.
From inside the Iden Peacock longhouse, she heard her mother Ktwala calling the clan to gather. Out she ran into the morning and waited as Ktwala descended the rickety external stairs of their wandering tower.
When the clan assembled, Ktwala spoke in this manner: “In all the directions, all I see are fenced fields and animals kept and guarded. In the distance are two longhouses. My brothers, some great clan owns these lands. Whether they are fierce or friendly, I do not know. But as I looked, I saw pyres and corpses.”
Iden, Maharai’s grandfather, pulled his grandson Ouis near. “Corpses? Such wanderings we’ve endured! Such trials! And now, fenced lands and pyres! What will become of us?” He grasped Ktwala’s hand. “Daughter, did you see any markings?”
“A large circle with lines.” Ktwala squatted and made a mark like the spokes of a wheel as Maharai looked on. Her face shone as if she and the sun were one. “Father! Can it be?”
Chief Iden put his hand to his mouth. “It is the Wheel Clan,” he said, and looked about the meadow shaking his head. “A noble clan! And yet…corpses?”
Nunu, fat, bent and graying, clasped her hands before her wrinkled face. “It’s two years since we’ve encountered them. In the past we met them often, do you remember?”
The lovely Gidea nodded. “Always those meetings were joyful. Often they helped us, but of late our tower has avoided them, their longhouses, and their fields.”
“Perhaps…” Nunu scratched her gray head. “Did any hear the sound of a weeping tower last night?”
All denied.
“I heard it.” Nunu frowned. “Strange that old ears should hear such things. Perhaps that tower pulled us here, into Wheel Clan lands. Strange, is it not, that corpses should abound in this place?”
Iden pushed his granddaughter toward the main entrance of their longhouse. “Hurry, Maharai. Fetch Jion. He’ll tell us what to do.”
Maharai ran inside to the old studier’s room. Jion lay half-asleep on his mat, his smelly feet sprawling outside of his blanket. A bottle of fermented Yisin grain alcohol lay beside him.
“Jion, Old Studier, come.”
“Why must I come?” He made no move to rise. “What is there to see that I have not yet seen? Let an old man rest!”
“Grandfather is worried. Something about the Wheel Clan and corpses.”
“Corpses? Well…Perhaps. The Wheel Clan is quite fierce.” Immediately, he grasped a large basket filled with clothing. Rummaging through it, he at last found a tunic. He turned it this way and that, then mumbled, “No, no. This is not impressive enough. Not to meet the Wheel Clan.”
Maharai placed her hand on her thin waist and watched as he threw his reeking clothing to the floor. “How you do preen! You must have been quite vain when you were young!”
Jion dug into another basket, threw tunics here and there until he found one, perfect, intricately woven. “This will do nicely.” He held the spotless tunic before his gaunt body. “Have I not told you about the Wheel Clan?” He frowned. “You and the rest of our women will have to cover up.”
“Why? I’m already covered.”
He took her hand. “At least the older women should cover themselves.”
“What are you going on about?”
“Wheel Clan men have lustful hearts, Little Spider. And while it’s acceptable to walk among our men with breasts covered only by stones, shells, twigs, and necklaces, for the Wheel Clan, it is not so.”
“Are they the outlaw longhouses you warned us of?”
“The Wheel Clan are more organized about raping. And they are not outlaws, are they?”
“Rape?” Maharai placed her tiny hands on her breasts. Whenever Gidea’s son bullied her, he threatened to cast her into the night where outcast men carried off solitary girls and raped them. Were these they? “They might steal me?”
“They
